Assorted notes and ramblings of mine. Mostly about endurance sports. Some serious, some not so serious. Some work related, others personal.

Friday, July 12, 2013

More On Sharing The Road

There has been an ongoing situation in the Kitchener-Waterloo area regarding the altercation between the driver of a horse trailer, and members of the Waterloo Cycling Club. It's not going well, and it points out the frustrations of both motorists and cyclists. For more on sharing the road, see my last blog!

There have been charges laid against the driver of the horse trailer, and several of the cyclists. Apparently there is a local bylaw that does not allow 2-abreast riding.

This has lead to columns such as this one in a the local Kitchener-Waterloo paper of record, The Record:

I am going to respond to your recent editorial in The Record, in two parts:

1.
Indeed, cyclists need to respect the rules of the road. I do all the
time. What I find odd is the behavior of motorists, who despite the fact
that I am observing the rules of the road to a T, seem to want to take
some form of hostile action against me (Mostly verbal assaults, but
occasionally physical actions). I ride several times a week - and have
been for 30 years. On at least one of those rides each week, almost
without fail, there is always at least one completely unprovoked
altercation with a motorist, or the motorist drives their vehicle in a
manner that puts me at extraordinary risk. Hopefully I don't need to
explain the basic physics surrounding any contact between motor vehicle
and cyclist, other than, it ALWAYS turns out very bad, and even fatal
for the cyclist.

Many motorists seem to have a poor understanding of the rules
of the road, and they are also extraordinarily cavalier in their
attitude when it comes to the safety of others, who share the road with
them, and indeed their own safety. May I suggest here, that MOTORISTS
need to respect the rules on rural roads!

2. To understand the rationale for 2-abreast riding, requires some counter-intuitive thinking:

Say
there is a group of 20 cyclists out riding. If they are riding single
file, they are strung out in a long single file line. On a two lane
road, with no shoulders, as is the case on many rural roads in Ontario,
many motorists think it OK to try and squeeze by the cyclists while
staying fully in their lane. This places both the cyclists, and the
motorists less than 1/2 a meter apart moving along at a reasonably high
speed. The passing of a long line of cyclists takes some time. ANY false
move on the part of the motorists, or the cyclists will result in . .
. Now, compact the group to 20 riders, riding 2-abreast. If it's a
group of good riders, they will be riding tightly together. They will be
taking up more of the lane, but not that much more, and the distance
from front to back of the group will now be less than half of what it
was. However, this will force, the motorist coming up from behind, to
slow down. Otherwise, they will run right over the cyclists - something I
hope they would not want to do. They will then have to wait for a safe
place to make the pass around the cyclists - just as they would if they
came upon a slower moving car, farm vehicle, police vehicle, etc . . Yes
this a minor inconvenience. However, that safe place to make the pass,
as it always does, will come up in a few seconds. Now, the pass is made
by, moving into the adjacent lane, giving the cyclists a wider berth,
AND, key here, passing the group of cyclists in significantly less time.
This is safer for EVERYONE - the cyclists, other motorists, and the
driver of that particular vehicle! Think about it for a bit.

To FULLY understand, #2, you need to embrace the thinking of Share The Road,
headed up by Eleanor McMahon - the philosophy is that we ALL need to
share the road - motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, and other vehicles,
because, we all have a right to be there!

I ride frequently with the Newmarket Eagles cycling club in and
around
Aurora and Newmarket, ON, in central & northern York region. It is
the club policy to
ride 2-abreast, where appropriate. We are lucky that most of the roads
of our regular routes are on reasonably quiet 2-lane rural roads
probably not unlike the roads outside Kitchener-Waterloo . We
rarely have any major issues when riding 2-abreast - but do from
time-to-time get verbally harassed by motorists( see #1). We even get
passed by York
Region Police officers in their cars, and we exchange friendly waves.

At
the risk of being accusatory, your views are very motorist-centric,
which is understood, because that is most likely the only experience of
using the road that you have. Ditto for almost all motorists. To better
understand, the view of cyclists, I would suggest spending some time on a
bike, on either urban, or rural roads, to better appreciate the
situation that cyclists are in, and the challenges that they face. If
you did, I am sure your views may be altered.

Best regards,

Steve Fleck

What say you? Do you agree or disagree with Ms. D'Amato. Please feel free to express your feelings here or via an email to Ms. D'Amato, or The Record.

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I agree Steve, I get harassed as well! Cycling on rural roads around Bradford, Tottenham and Alliston. Roads are particularly quite but from time to time you get the motorist who is trying to beat hwy 400 traffic and is doing 120 in an 80 zone (or faster), passes erratically and usually yells out words like a school bully. It's extremely pathetic and I would love to put an end to the harassment. What can we do to be heard?!

These are my roads right in my backyard (New Hamburg is just outside of KW). It certainly doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling when columnists for our local paper have views like this. I agree 100% with your response back to her.

Whether single file or 2 abreast the car back has to cross the yellow line regardless so it only makes sense that 2 abreast is safest. They are more visible and can be passed in half the time. Any motorist trying to squeeze by a group of cyclist and incoming traffic is playing Russian roulette with people's lives. And should be charged with murder in this situation

Agreed. The "close-calls", of which if you ride enough, start to become numerous, are never part of any statistical research.

There was a study that was completed last year that only dealt with fatalities.

My feeling from my own experience is that if you decrease the # of "close-calls", you'll reduce the fatalities. Fatalities and really bad altercations between motorists & cyclists, are close-calls gone terribly bad in an instant!

It's extraordinary to me that so many motorists drive with this feeling of invincibility, but they are only one false move and a half-second away from something VERY serious/tragic.